Salted Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients

• 213g cake flour
• 230g bread flour
• 1 ¼ teaspoons baking soda
• 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
• ¾ teaspoons coarse salt
• 1 ¼ cups unsalted butter (2 and a half sticks)
• 175g light brown sugar
• 175g granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 tsp pure vanilla extract (or imitation vanilla extract)
• 20 oz (1 ¼ pounds) Dark Chocolate Chips
• Coarse Sea Salt to top-off cookies at the end

Instructions

1. 2 hours prior to baking, leave 2 eggs and and 2 and a half sticks of butter out on the kitchen counter to reach room temperature (so they mix with everything more evenly and less chunky)
2. Sift flours, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Set aside.
3. Using a mixer fitted with paddle attachment, mix/cream butter and sugars just until they’re mixed together (about 1 minute on lowest setting).
4. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition (about 10 seconds each).
5. Stir in the vanilla (about 10 seconds) then stop the mixer
6. Add dry ingredients from the other bowl and mix until just combined, 5 to 10 seconds. Pour 20 oz of dark chocolate chips. Use a covered bowl or use plastic wrap around the ball of cookie dough and refrigerate for 24 to 36 hours. Dough may be used in batches, and can be refrigerated for up to 72 hours.
7. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350°F . Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a nonstick baking mat. Set aside.
8. Roll cookie dough with hands into about 1 inch diameter balls (about the size of a golf ball). Place them equally far apart from each other so there’s enough room for 12 balls in one batch.
9. Each batch’s cooking time can vary from 11 minutes to 15 minutes depending on the oven and size of cookie dough balls. Pull batch out of oven when edges of cookies begin to brown or desired softness/crunchiness.
10. When cookies are pulled out, quickly add a pinch (or desired amount) of coarse sea salt to the top of each cookie
11. Use a metal spatula to immediately move cookies from baking mat onto cooling rack

For best results (in my experience)

• Go heavier on the “pinch” of the coarse sea salt when you pull cookies out of the oven. I haven’t had anyone say “these are too salty” even when I go hard in the paint
• Use a mixing bowl (or bowl with a spout) for the flours so they’re easy to pour into the mixing bowl
• Mixing ingredients right up until the moment they’re combined is the way (if you mix cookies longer they get dense and tough)
• Leaving the dough in the fridge overnight rather than baking them immediately after making dough makes better cookies. I think it’s because all of the ingredients are the same temperature (flours/sugars vs. eggs vs. butter etc)
• Using an airtight bowl vs. wrapping in plastic wrap for leaving in the fridge overnight seems to be the same, just less trash/waste if you use a bowl.
• I started with 200g granulated sugar, and 200g light brown sugar per batch, then started reducing each by 5g’s and no one seems to miss more sugar. I’m guessing they may not be “sweet enough” around the 150g each mark.